Let's see, there's the idea that science is "completely divorced from any human objectives", even though just about every application of science I've seen uses it directly FOR human concerns, and nothing else. What do you think artificial heart valves, or iPods for that matter, are for exactly?

Further, if there ARE any "evil geniuses" out there, they seem to be as inept as they are morally bankrupt, as I haven't heard word from any of them. Just about all the scientists I hear of have some moral limits on what they'll do, and there's this whole oversight thing set up to protect the rights of test subjects. That wasn't the result of some made for TV movie plot with some concerned mother standing up to evil scientists vivisecting children, it was the result of scientists themselves imposing certain limits.

And it misses one very important point, that what science does is say "humans are imperfect observers, we should try to eliminate as much of our own biases as possible when gathering information about the world so as to make sure it is as reliable as possible". THIS seems to be the "disconnect" most people talk about, ignoring your "gut". Sorry, this appeal to "other ways of knowing" just comes off stupid.

Then there's the straw man that atheists "don't believe in anything". I see it on TV all the time. They believe not just in no gods, but rather "NOOOOTHIIIIING". That's a nihilist, not an atheist. While there IS overlap to be sure, I for one can safely say from what I've read here that no one here is a nihilist. We believe in stuff, just not gods (and by extension, due to our general skepticism, there's many other things we don't believe in, but we do acknowledge that the material world exists, and we do believe in a system of morality based on what we know about other people).

As for the boobquake thing, are you honestly going to say you DO think that Earthquake was caused by this whole political event? The quake that didn't really damage anything? Let's compare the scale of damage done by the various quakes, and then ask yourself if a god that is trying to tell people it hates cleavage wouldn't do better than to actually make a bigger quake for bigger infractions, but then again that might actually make some sort of perverse sense. I'll certainly agree it was just plain bad timing, but considering this might become a yearly thing, we'll see if we can expect yearly quakes. Also, considering there's far "worse" displays in many locations that don't get hit by quakes, and many places with no such "infractions" that DO, what exactly are we supposed to draw from this?

When it gets right down to it though, here's the main problem. Earthquakes have a perfectly naturalistic explanation, one that doesn't need to invoke any sort of deity, and they behave in accordance with that explanation, and NOT in accordance with the behaviors attributed to god in the "god did it" explanation. I'd also be very suspect of a god that would invoke punishment that looks and acts exactly the same as the "natural version", thus promising that we humans would be completley unable to distinguish what acts god is frowning upon with any one act, since we can't tell which ones were god, and which ones were just tectonic activity. Further, an all-powerful god could just do the whole pillar of salt thing couldn't it? Such incredible collateral damage as killing thousands that had nothing to do with any of these infractions, while biblically supported, isn't the sort of act that inspires confidence in a leader that doesn't NEED to do any of that to get it's point across.

They have a strong arousal effect on me. So you're wrong, Mad Dave.Plate tectonics has no belief in BOOBIES, and BOOBIES has zero effect on crustal plate movements.Now if we could only get a cute psychiatric nurse with BOOBIES to attract Mad Dave to take his meds, we wouldn't have to put up with a plague of incinerated goats.

Looks like DM got his copypasta through without the comment moderation up. I'll leave this one up, since DJ has that good response.

Note, DM, that I'll be back to deleting your spam unless you try talking to us like a human being. Right now, you sound too much like an internet spambot who only learns about the world by watching old sci-fi B-movies.